Last night's knit night was packed; last week's was almost empty. No predicting attendance at knit night. And with lots of people there, I get distracted. I went intending to return this yarn:

Claudia Hand Painted Yarn/Silky Wool Lace

because it's meant for this enormous wrap, made on size three needles, and will take forever.

Nuvem by Martina Behm

But Sallyknit is making one, and she assured me that I will love it and that I won't mind having to work on it FOREVER. So I kept the yarn and this makes it..about four things? I have going at one time. Maybe five.

When I came home and checked the mail, this yarn from Miss Babs was in it.

Miss Babs Cygnus Gradient Set

It's a spectrum selection of colors meant for this:

Spectral by Debbi Stone

as soon as I figure out how to do the stitch.  

So yet another project.  I am also working on two sweaters and the aforementioned lace.

I must be crazy.  

AND we had consensus regarding William (of William and Kate). He is both a prince and a duke. The Prince title was given to him when he was born and the Duke title was given to him whenever. He is entitled to be a prince because he was, you know, born, but the duke is just a bonus. Or something.  

Finished.....

I just finished the Hip in Hemp Skirt that has been on the needles since 2011. I'm happy with the results; I won't hold a grudge---it's not the skirt's fault that it took me so long.

I did take Mere's advice (thank you!) and knit a few extra inches before I cast off, and thanks to Ravelry readers' notes, I realized I had not copied the cast off instructions, which required 10 rows of garter stitch. That added an inch to the length and thank goodness, I had enough yarn.

This skirt kept getting fuller as it got longer, and I was worried that I would need one of these to wear it properly.

If only I had read the other knitters' comments on this skirt BEFORE I started the skirt I would have known how to make it longer without making it wider, and at the same time, maintain the desired shape of the skirt. And I could have skipped all the math and logic and painful thinking that doing the calculations myself entailed:

If I were a more experienced knitter, I would have been able to figure out with my own little brain how to make the changes I needed to make with. It was embarrassingly easy! Just add one extra stockinette row between the increase rows---4 rows instead of 5. Duh.

This skirt took forever and a month to knit, has one bazillion stitches and I LOVE it!

The Never-Ending Linen Skirt

I started this skirt after Stitches South, 2011. Here we are, in June of 2012, and I'm still knitting it. Claudia of Claudia Hand Painted Yarn told me that I should make it long enough to cover the tops of my boots. "No leg showing," was how she put it. Well, I am tired of knitting this and it just now only covers my knees.I went online last night to determine what Fashion says about the proper length of skirts with cowboy boots (older daughter, who lives in Texas, says that there, they just call them "boots") and this is representative of what I found:
I didn't find any pictures of anyone wearing longer skirts. Unfortunately, I think that Fashion doesn't deal with um....elderly...no, that's not right.....Mature (that's it!) mature women wearing boots.

I have most of one skein of linen remaining, so I can knit on and on and on and........

...but I don't think I will. I'll try it on once more and then decide where to stop. I had thought of doing a picot bind off until I remembered that I have a million and ten stitches on the needle. No picot for me.

Phew....

Finished. I had planned to use all of the yarn on the skeins, but got tired of the thing before that happened. So I have yarn left over and I will take it to Austin with me to see what I can get the older girls to weave on their loom.

I did a picot bind off to make the process more creative and less boring, but the less boring part didn't happen. And yes, I could have put pins in each of the little points of the picot, but I didn't want to love the frilly edges.

Now on to the rest of the Hip in Hemp skirt I started over a year ago. I put it on a 60" cord and put the elastic in the waist and discovered that it fits!!! I see a light at the end of the tunnel on this project and I don't think it's the train coming at me. I think it's a nearly finished skirt...and it's about time. And I think it's going to be beautiful. Fingers crossed.

Aw, Shucks

Will I ever learn?

This skirt has been too big for forever, but I kept telling myself that it was just an illusion, that once I had more of it finished I could try it on and it would fall just right and it would fit.

It doesn't.

SO, I guess I will start over.

DAY...UM. But it is my own fault.

Oh, what to do? What to do?

Baxter---NO!

You might not know me in person, but take my word for this: the waistband on this skirt is much too large for me. I don’t know what has happened. I did check gauge well after I was into the pattern portion of the skirt, and it seemed to be right on. But when I pulled the skirt out at knit night two weeks ago, people either gasped or laughed. The waistband did not appear to be intended for me.

So between that knit night and last week’s knit night, I put an extender cord on my knit-picks interchangeable needles so that I could spread the whole skirt out.

I took it back to knit night, and there were the same gasps and laughs that there had been the previous week.

I think there is a problem.

SallyKnit had the best solution: Eat more.

And while I like that suggestion, I think I’ll go with Lucille’s: put the elastic in the waistband, put the skirt on, and see how it looks. Maybe the waistband is supposed to be that large pre-elastic.

Once I take the skirt out of time out (out of sight, out of mind is my current working philosophy) I’ll put in the elastic and see what happens.

But the out of mind stuff isn't working. The skirt is nagging at me.

If

it's a poor workman who blames his tools, then I am a great and wonderful work.....woman? person? Whatever.

I started out knitting the waistband of the Hip in Hemp skirt on size 4 Addis, then switched to size 5 Addis to knit the skirt itself. Every fourth row is a pattern row, and part of the pattern contains M1L and M1R stitches.

Well, that was no easy trick with the dull points on the Addis. (The Knit Picks needles are on the left; the Addis on the right.) So I switched to the KnitPicks interchangeables, and that made all the difference in the world. I can just knit along, no struggling with the tricky stitches, thanks to the pointier tips, and off I go. So I am giving credit where credit is due---Knit Picks needles are fantastic!!! Signature needles are pointier still, but Boy George, they are forty dollars a pair!

The patterning created by the yarn and the stitches is starting to show up, and while it's a bit more obviously stripey than I had thought it would be, I still love it. This is not the Satan Sasha Skirt's sibling skirt. It's lovely and it is easy to knit. The chart was intimidating to look at but once I figured out what it all meant, I decided it was brilliant. Whoever put together the charts for it is a genius. (See? Giving credit where credit is due again.)
I'm no genius, however. As I was taking the picture of the chart, I noticed that the magnetic count guide has a gauge guide on it and I remembered that I had not measured for gauge. Uh oh. Too late now. But I have used this yarn before, and I was pretty close to gauge then, so I am assuming I am now. (Also I did sort of check after I took the picture, and I think I'm OK. )

Confusion

Reigns.

I used a provisional cast on for the skirt I am starting. It is supposed to be an easy way to hold live stitches. If I had used my brain, I would have remembered that I could have just cast the stitches on to my Knit Picks interchangeable needles, then taken the points off and capped the cord and kept the live stitches on the cord. But instead I crocheted a chain and knit into it.

The idea is that the red yarn would just pull out easily as I picked up the live stitches. I have tried picking up from both ends, but the waste yarn will not pull out. So I have just spent 45 minutes picking up stitches one by one, and clipping out the waste yarn stitch by stitch. And I'm only about a third of the way around the 222 stitches. Aaacccckkk.
And at last night's knit night, after I finished all the rows I needed for the skirt waistband, I started an EASY project, the Clapotis scarf. Sallyknit was wearing hers and I loved it, so since I really, really need another scarf, I picked out this lovely Malabrigo sock yarn, colorway 852 Persia, to make my Clapotis. I cast on, knit 14 rows, and pulled them out twice. It's EASY, says everyone at knit-night. Not for me, apparently. So once I finish the mess I've made of the Hip in Hemp skirt cast on, I'll try the Clapotis again.

Knitting is fun. Knitting is fun. Knitting is fun.

Good News/Bad News

The good news: My Claudia Handpainted Yarn, Ocean Depth color, is finally here and I can knit the Hip in Hemp skirt.

The bad news: My Claudia Handpainted Yarn, Ocean Depth color, is finally here and I can knit the Hip in Hemp skirt. (I don't understand the pattern yet.)

Isn't it pretty??? I know that I'll figure it out once I get the stitches on the needles.

These Boots Were Made for

ME!!!

I'm just back from Austin and visiting my four grandchildren (and their parents). I had a great time. They are all fun and...quite often, quite unintentionally...funny. We all had a good time until the very last few minutes there. We were just about set to leave for the airport when grandson (age 4) ran and then fell, hitting his chin on the coffee table CORNER. Ouch.

So off went daughter and grandson to the ER and off went my son-in-law, two-year old granddaughter and me to the airport. Grandson ended up with three stitches (poor little guy) and I ended up languishing on the runway for an additional 1 1/2 hours because of a groundstop in Atlanta.

But grandson is fine today and thanks to the versed he was given in the hospital, has no memory of the trauma part of the ER visit.

And I am back in Atlanta...sniff...and still waiting for the Claudia Handpaint to show up so that I can knit the second skirt that I need to wear with my new boots.

Yee Haw, y'all!

Oh Dear

Stitches South has come and gone, and we went and did some damage, although not as much as we did last year. We arrived at the opening bell, stayed till closing bell, and probably could have stayed longer. But like a moth to a porch light, I was drawn to the Fine Points booth, over and over and over... And now I am making another skirt. This skirt:

Ugly, isn't it?

Yes, it is, but I am not making it out of the yarn called for and am instead using more of the beautiful Claudia Hand-Painted linen yarn that I used for the Sasha Skirt. I don't have it yet; the booth only had two of the six skeins I need, so Claudia herself is dying six skeins for me and shipping it to me. How special am I!!!???

The colors are deep and rich, and change gradually. Claudia was wearing the skirt, so I do know that it won't look at all like this when I am finished with it. I have studied the pattern though, and I haven't a clue what it is talking about. I hope that I will understand it when I start working on it, and also the nice people at Fine Points gave me a written tutorial to help with it.

I have (sort of) sworn to knit nothing else until I finish the Summit Shawl, but that may not be what happens. I can hear the Juneberry Triangle sighing from time to time from the closet where it resides, safely away from Baxter's teeth, but I am starting to feel brave enough to pull it out and try the next chart pattern. And I know I will want to start on the skirt once the yarn arrives.

Mission creep has already begun, however, because I loved the boots that Claudia wore with the skirt.

Now I NEED cowgirl boots!

The Skirt

is finished. Done. Completed.

Whew......

Aunt Lois, is that you? Uncle Jimmy?

No, not THAT light. I hope.


The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter and brighter, but I mean the tunnel that is my skirt.

I finished and bound off the bottom tier at Thursday's knit night and then picked up the 205 stitches for the top AND last tier. The pattern for this ruffle is quick and easy and there is a chance that I might have it finished by this Thursday's knit night. YAY!!!

Then I can stop whining about this project and enjoy having it finished. Finally!!!

Whew...I made it.

Last week, as my friends and I were innocently wandering through Stitches South, minding our own business, bothering no one, suddenly out in front of us appeared The Most Beautiful Skirt Ever. We asked the woman wearing it if we could take a photo of the skirt, and she said that we could.

She turned out to be a saleswoman/enabler for Fine Points Inc. of Cleveland, Ohio. An hour and a half later, two of us had bought the yarn required to make the skirt.

These are the best photos I have found of the skirts, but they really do not do the skirts justice.

The short version:

The long version:
Making this skirt involves knitting an underskirt with Louet Euroflax (100 % Wet Spun Linen) which is a whole lot like knitting with waxed dental floss. I am not exaggerating here. It's stiff, bendable and not at all nice to knit with. It also tends to spring off the needles when I'm not looking. However, after it is washed and dried IN THE WASHER AND DRYER! it is soft and drapy.

The underskirt is all knit in stockinette except for the occasional purl row which is used to pick up stitches from to knit each of the tiers. Each tier is made from a different Claudia Hand Painted Yarn. The colors are gorgeous and it took an hour and a half to go through the various color combinations. The bonus? Claudia herself was there to help.

But yesterday, I started the project, and spent last night at knit night so immersed in struggling with the waistband that I barely knew what else was going on around me. And then this morning, more of the struggle.

Notice all the needles..........

We sock knitters always try to convince those would-be sock-knitters that you only knit with two needles at once, so they should not be intimidated by the porcupine-like mess of four double pointed needles they see us working with. This part of the project involved three circular needles - with their six points - each needle of a different size (no idea why, I was just following directions) and because I had had to take the live stitches off of a provisional cast-on length of waste yarn, I had to hold a crochet hook in my mouth to pick up all the ^&*() dropped stitches that manoeuvre had caused.

It was a mess. The goal was to knit the two long sides of the band together to form a casing for elastic. It took me over three hours to finally accomplish this. Did I even know if I had the same number of stitches on each needle? Did I even know if I had the required 205 stitches when I finished? Did I bother to count???

No, I did not. It was all I could do not to throw the whole thing into a very long time out.

But I persevered and this is the result:




The rest (until I tackle the tiers) is brain-dead easy (and probably just as boring). Just stockinette stitch on size 4 needles for 40 inches.

NOW I'll count the stitches.

And with any luck, there will be 205...but if not, I know how to increase or decrease...(in other words - cheat!)